Doctor Who, “Cold Blood” (5.09)

Better than last time, in any case. That said, It wasn’t very smart on his part to tell the truth about what happened the last time the humans and reptiles met. He’s either not very bright, too honest or a bit of both.

On the topic of honesty, The Doctor is also a man of principle. When he learns the mother killed their prisoner, he pretty much regards her as something worse than Hitler on the scale of humanity. In the end, however, he does see this as a learning experience for her but he still doesn’t mince words regarding what she did.

Is it just me or is The Doctor a bit more adventurous regarding changing time? Sure this apparently isn’t some kind of time-locked event like his last little screwup on Mars should have been, but inviting another species onto Earth seems like a big, big change, even in Doctor Who‘s reality.

How’s… uh, who again? … I guess Amy.

Ha! Ha! But to be serious, it’s bull-crap they killed Rory. That whole scene felt thrown in. His character had a chance to evolve. He even kind of took charge when The Doctor was away. But no… He ends up having a worse end to his companionship than Donna Noble’s unfortunate memory issues. He dies… then gets wiped out of existence. Now that’s a bad day. This is Doctor Who, however. Time has been acting very weird lately so who knows.

How’s the Story?

They could have just stopped beating around the bush – that’s a convenient pun – and just call this episode “Guantanamo Bay.” It has torture, war, a military tribunal and overzealous warmongers. Despite the lack of subtlety, it was portrayed very well. The torture scene was surprisingly graphic in its depiction of pain for a familiy-oriented show.

Now, for the other stuff:

It’s rather apt for the Doctors so-called weapon, his sonic screwdriver, to end up being an anti-weapon weapon, blasting the reptiles’ rays right out of their hands. It fits well with that damn annoying character trait he has.

Whoever does the zoom in and out for the reptile’s floating-lazer-screen-to-old-CRT-monitor communicator needs to cool down a bit.

That shrapnel The Doctor found in the Crack is… interesting. When it comes to this show, It could mean anything however.

I’m sure Taser must be thrilled to see an electric gun kill someone on TV. Granted it’s a foreign species so looking at it that way, they could start a new market and sell their products for Earth defence.

In Conclusion

This was certainly a great Doctor Who episode. That doesn’t take away from the fact it’s complete crap they killed Rory. But what happened, happened so…